I used to count the hours until the moon awakened
and the stars blanketed the blackness of the sky.
I fought through the heaviness of my eyelids,
managing to stay awake long enough to answer your call.

My nights were encompassed in your stories, thoughts…laughter.
I was tainted with infatuation.
Every night I was wasted in your love,
and not once did it cross my mind that this was dangerous.

Now I loathe every passing hour of the day.
I kiss the sun goodnight, praying that it would return soon
so that I am not alone for long.
I now pray for my eyes to grow heavy,
knowing you would no longer call.

My nights are now encompassed in the ghosts
of your stories, thoughts…laughter.
I am tainted with loneliness;
wasted by your love.
The only thing in my mind
is that I should have known you were dangerous.

If I were to mindlessly meander the streets
That you told me were all in my thalamus, I
Would find the edge of Earth, devastated
And barren. Then I would contently sit on the
Brim and toss broken asphalt into the somber
Chasm and listen for echoes that remain absent.
I would welcome the silence into my
Lonesome and say, “Thank you for
Reminding me that this is all  my imagination.”

I don’t think anyone knows what the hell they’re doing.  I mean, people think they have it all figured out but honestly, who knows? We can’t truly follow examples because everyone’s different –don’t tell me they’re not—and it’s not like we can ever have the same experiences. Not the exact same, anyways. And so I don’t think anyone knows what they’re going to do or feel each day, because we’re all a train wreck wrapped inside a fractured mind and a strong-ish body, moving through every day with the same uncertainty as a dandelion in a field of roses—we are lost. I’m not sure why we pretend; why we lie to ourselves because we say it’s not fair when other people lie. We put ourselves below others, or above them but who the hell cares? No one knows who they are, don’t let them fool you and don’t let them get you down because nobody knows where they’re going and so they’re pushing past you and sprinting in the wrong direction because maybe you’ve gotten further than them and they don’t know what to do and maybe they need people behind them to feel like they’re moving at all so let it be. Take a deep breath. You’re on your own, and they say you don’t have to be but you are. Because you live inside your mind—it doesn’t matter if you don’t want to. You are the things you think and feel and no one else is feeling them too even though they’ll say they are…it doesn’t matter. You are stronger than you think and even though you don’t know what you’re doing you can figure it out—at least for a little while. At least long enough to take a deep breath and find your next step. Nobody knows what the hell they’re doing. Every time we think we have it all figured out, and we have a map of our lives tucked safely into our back pockets the wind picks up and blows it away along with any confidence we had and we’re forced to start anew. That’s why no one knows what they’re doing. We don’t have time to map it all out. We don’t have time for anything, and that’s why we’re lost. Things happen so fast, and before we can absorb them or celebrate them or be sad about them something else happens, and we’re thrown into another frenzy of emotion that takes away our breath and drowns our hearts in confusion—there isn’t enough time. And so no one knows what they’re doing and if they did, they couldn’t do it anyways because even people who are brilliant are full of doubts. They second guess themselves and they second guess each other because they know they are brilliant but that isn’t enough. That’s never enough. Society shows us—they scream at us that we are who they say we are and if they don’t see we are brilliant there’s no point in trying to prove that we are because it doesn’t matter.  None of it matters. And I don’t know why I feel that way but I do and I have and I always will until someone shows me I am wrong. And I mean shows me. I am tired of words and all their empty words no one knows how to use them right and they say them without a thought about how they will enter other people’s minds or lace their dreams I want someone to show me. I can’t show myself. I could try and I have before but the truth is I don’t know what the hell I’m doing. And maybe I’m pretending when I say that everyone feels the same way or maybe I am painfully correct—no one knows. No one cares. I am just as much a dandelion in a field of roses as a rose in a bouquet of weeds and so is everybody else. The problem is that dandelions are a menace and roses have thorns and there isn’t time to change the world or smooth things out because there isn’t time for anything. Nobody knows what they’re doing. So how does the world work? How do we breathe in and breathe out knowing that we’re lost and so it everyone else and no one can tell us how to be found because we cannot follow examples. Every single thing effects every single person in a different way, and no matter how microscopic their change in perspective is it still exists. The print made by our thumbs is not the only thing that is completely unique about us. If we could all be identified by the pictures in our minds and the music in our souls and not the masks we wear to muffle it all the world could be a better reality. Because for some of us not knowing is too much. We fall asleep at night or during the day and we don’t want to wake up because whenever our eyes are closed our hearts are, too. The world painted on our eyelids is better than the dreamless chasm that is reality and maybe that’s dramatic and maybe it’s too deep but no one cares anyway. These worlds are inside of me and they’re not just going to melt away so I have to put them somewhere. I don’t know what I’m doing. I want people to understand that. There’s always something more. I’m not sure what I mean by that. It’s just whenever I’m happy there’s something else that reminds me why I wasn’t before. I know who I am, better than a lot of people, but I don’t think it matters. I’m wearing a mask just like everyone else even though the music in my soul is so loud it shakes me. I drown it out and cover it up with the labels taped across my mouth and pinned to my back by people who just want to sleep. I’m not saying things should change. I don’t think they will. I don’t think I can change them but accepting that dandelions belong with roses is the only place I can start. Being lost is okay and being as scared of your own thorns as you are of everyone else’s is okay, too. Setting aside your mask and letting music blare from inside of you is beautiful and everyone knows it, but it they pretend it’s not…that’s okay. But I guess I’m sick of OKAYs. I want brilliance. I guess for now I will keep my mask on, and I’m okay with saying—I’m BRILLIANT with saying mine is a medley of both finger prints and music; weeds and a rose’s glow, and the beautiful and bold blackness of all these words I’ve torn from exactly Who I Am.

Shakespeare, I'm writing you an emo poem.

Tyler cuts his wrists and plays piano 'cause he's so depressed.
You can tell it's not an exorcism though, since you can hear his lisp.

I don't play piano anymore (the ivories no longer tickle my fancy)
and I never really cut,
unless you count the symmetry,
or lack of it;
besides, I've always had a father.

Do you believe in demons, bard?
I'm not familiar enough with your works to know;
English didn't interest me much beyond the grammar.
Maybe that's a possession in itself, or an obsession at least,
since I don't think I could do the Devil justice--
and I'm none to bring light from darkness.

Do golden glittered gowns prove earnings or entitlement?
A different wealth perhaps, the philosopher kings of old (Do you know of those? I can't imagine otherwise, such a trove of inspiration).
I would not hold it against you if you didn't;
your productions sold for pennies,
and in the very least you were a man (or so the rumor goes).

All facades aside, I would inquire about purpose.
Were you satisfied with life? Were you not?
Did you desire a longer lease?
Would you say I should?
My outward walls are painted very gaily,
gayer than yours in all likelihood, or my boyfriend would say as much.
(I can't speak for the fashion of the times.)
Yet when I suffer loss, it seems absolute, one end and the other.
Do you approve of modern day's catharsis?

I expect a proper follow-up.

Amber drips from the 60’s-style lamps
on two end tables.
Brassy-orange and bulbous,
they illuminate the tangled tracks.

The light spills onto the floor
like heavy freight abandoning its car.
It spawns the locomotive shadow
cast by my grandmother’s sunken-in couch.

I nestle myself snug between the pillows,
dense and flattened by years of Sundays.
Sundays that bring my father
close to his brother, not a brother at all.

I peer over the edge
and heave a hushed “all aboard.”
Grandma sleeps to unwind
the day’s knot of exhaustion.

Each bone-bleach white fiber frays
from the chemotherapy that robs
her gnarled hands of their strength.
This one-way ticket marks the end of a journey
of a once well-oiled machine.

The exhales of a CSX
spout its peppery breath out in opaque puffs.
I am a conductor, tearing the ticket
of tonight’s traveler.

Rising to my bare feet now,
I sink into the cushion like wet sand.
The train thrusts and in a single bound,
I leap from the ledge and leave my lone passenger.

The cars whir and hum alongside me.
Deafening metallic wind rusts the edge of the rug.
I’m still waiting for her return,
and in denial that it was her last train.

I’ve never been an artist. I wasn’t born to hold a paintbrush in my hand. I’ve never felt the need to capture the reality I see with charcoal or pencil or oils or clay—I just haven’t. Some people stop seeing the world as it is and they change it with their art but I’ve never been an artist. When I see something beautiful I remember it and I learn from it but I see no need to recreate it. I don’t feel the urge to twist it. They say a picture is worth a thousand words but a fake one is only worth questions and I’d rather have the world be raw and blunt and unpolished than have people try and show me how they see it because I don’t care. A picture may be worth a thousand words but there are millions of words inside my head and I can show you everything you need to know with a question and some time to think because the world is not beautiful sunsets or rainy streets it is ketchup stains on trembling lips and empty backpacks soaked by faucets. It is a scarf wrapped too tight around a freckled neck; a goodbye kiss and a leather suitcase and everything in between. You can keep your charcoal if you want it and draw the smiles why I tell you all the reasons there are smiles to draw. The sunsets and the rainy streets exist but they are not important. They are the neon lights and the shadows they don’t reach but they do not highlight the people dancing in between. They are the best days and the worst but they do not show the days of effortless laughter over fractured dreams, messy hair and tear-stained skin. A picture is worth a thousand words but if you have a hundred good words a million pictures can be born. I’ve never been an artist, but I understand that the things that are real are invisible. They cannot be captured by a pen or reined in by a canvas. What everyone calls art could never be extensive enough, exquisite enough; real enough. No matter how many images you see there are always pieces missing. I’ve never been an artist. But if you hand me a paintbrush I will use it to write. I will use it to form the letters that form my life that form the world. And if you insist I can write the word ‘art’ but know that I don’t believe in the plainness of charcoal and paper I believe in the long nights curled up reading and the silent afternoons wishing your story was the same as one you’ve read. Or one you’ve written.

I've been reduced to a fraction of who I thought I was
realizing who I had become, by the screens
portraying images and spouting words I thought were true
one day you wake up, wake up from a false reality

you were a child once, playing, wishing, wanting
never thinking about the world you inhabited
the mothers and fathers drudging along everyday
unhappy and ashamed their lives turned into a choreographed dance

now here you are, of age, in college, getting a job
unimpressed with the way society has molded you
to become just another game piece like your parents in their dance
using you and abusing you, you're just a means to an end

Dare you falter, dare you, they indoctrinate you, brainwash you
so if you dare, you fret and stress and don't want to live
you beg for an escape from the harsh world surrounding you
but be brave, do it, jump off the metaphorical cliff

fill your soul with the passion and desire a human being deserves
rather then the futile toils of rote mechanicism they have made your world
feel something more raw and powerful then they could ever give you
because they are nervous and scared that if you wake up they will tumble

And I dream but I don't sleep,
because sleep implies rest.
So all of the restless dreamers,
we wander the streets
in a heaven and hell of our own creation;
the demons of our imagination.
And we sing of love.
And we sing of hate.
And we whisper of rebellion-
and we seal our fates.
We own the night,
but they own the days;
the ones who enslave us-
but we break off our chains.
Because we dream without sleep,
and we wander without rest.
The restless dreamers
who own the streets and the demons-
because we have faced them.